


Boys like us

by Glamidala



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Misgendering, Period-Typical Homophobia, Trans Beverly Marsh, Trans Richie Tozier, Transitioning, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:01:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26400817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glamidala/pseuds/Glamidala
Summary: Richie Tozier's life as a trans kid growing up in Derry
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	Boys like us

**Author's Note:**

> I want to preface this by noting that this fic deals with transphobia and homophobia, and how Richie and the people he loves overcome it.
> 
> There is deadnaming in this fic, but only until Richie has chosen his name. The correct pronouns are used to refer to him throughout.
> 
> If there is anything triggering that needs to be noted here, please let me know and I will update this section.

He's four years old when his mom buys him the dress for a family party, pink and lacy and covered in ribbon. He makes a fuss while she wrestles him into it, trying to pull chubby toddler arms through the sleeves, as he wriggles. She sits him in front of her vanity mirror and brushes his thick, messy hair, clipping in some little barrettes. Placing a kiss on his cheek, she looks at them both in the mirror. 

"See, Rachie? Very pretty."

By the end of the party the dress is covered in dirt and spilled ketchup, and the barrettes are nowhere to be seen, hair tangled wildly and full of twigs. He grins so hard his chubby cheeks push his glasses up his face as he holds out a little frog cupped in his hands.

"Look, Mama! Pretty froggy!"

She smiles. It was worth a try. At least the dress wasn't too expensive.

*

"Pass the scissors, Billy!"

He holds out his hand to receive them, tiny fingers clutching the chunky plastic of kindergarten safety scissors. 

"Y-you gonna c-cut a heart for your Valentine, R-rachie?" Billy leans across the table to grab the glue from Stan, who swats at his hand, and mutters something about not being done with it.

"Valentine's Day is stupid, Billy; I don't like pink or hearts or cards!" 

He holds the scissors up and chops, a stream of long dark hair falling to the floor like a twisting ribbon. Billy looks at him like he wants to cry, but that only spurs him on, cutting thick, uneven chunks until his hair falls just short of his chin, curling at the ends without the extra weight. Stan looks up from where he's carefully applying a sticker—a bee with a little "bee mine" heart—and considers the new look.

"You look ugly."

Billy starts crying for real. "I still th-think you look p-p-pretty!" 

Rachie beams at him, still brandishing the scissors.

"No thanks, Billy! I'm ugly!"

His smile fades when they hear the teacher shriek, "RACHEL TOZIER, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"

Later, when his mother picks him up from school and takes him straight to the hairdresser, trying to make sense of the uneven mess he's made, he's grinning again. The woman cutting his hair–Brenda, the plastic tag clipped to her smock indicates–holds up a mirror behind him to let him see the finished product.

"Ugly!" He says again, and she looks shocked. Maggie Tozier puts down her magazine and looks at him, confused.

"Is that a good thing, sweetheart?"

"Yes, Mama!" And he's laughing and swinging his little legs in the chair. She shrugs at Brenda, pays, and takes a lollipop for him ("yellow, please!") And leaves.

*

About halfway through September, a new boy ends up in Mrs. Dillon's first grade class. He's small and shy, with big brown eyes and a spray of freckles across his nose.

"Boys and girls, this is Eddie Kaspbrak, he's just moved to Derry, please make him feel welcome! Eddie, you can go ahead and take a seat next to Stanley."

It's the only available seat, all the other tables with four students and this one only with three. He slides into the empty chair, Stan to his right, and Billy and Rachie across from him. Mrs. Dillon had tried to separate them, but Rachie was even more disruptive when he had to try and get their attention from across the classroom. Besides, that Uris boy was a good influence, and helped keep him focused.

Billy introduced them. "I'm B-billy and th-this is Stan and R-rachie!" 

Eddie's face screwed up, thinking. "Richie?"

A girl at the table next to them had clearly been eavesdropping, and leaned over.

"No, her name's Rachel, she just looks like a boy because of her hair!"

Those big, dark eyes started brimming with tears.

"I'm sorry! I thought you were a boy, and–"

Rachie glared at the girl.

"No! Mrs. Dillon says we gotta make Eddie welcome, so if Eddie thinks I'm a boy, then I'm a boy, ok? I'm Richie now, Eddie said so!"

Stan nods. "Okay, Richie! I like that better!" Eddie gives him a watery smile, wiping his eyes on the back of his hand. 

Richie feels right, feels good. He liked that. He likes that Eddie thinks he's a boy. He's still looking at him when he smiles and says,

"Me too!"

*

"Ok, we're gonna play dodgeball, boys against girls! Divide yourselves up!"

Richie stands on the boys side next to Eddie, chattering excitedly. Gym class is probably the best part of being in fourth grade, now that they get to do big kid sports and not just play games made for little kids.

"Miss Tozier, I asked for two teams!"

His ears burn pink and he stares down at his dirty sneakers as he feels all eyes on him, but he doesn't move.

"Miss Tozier, go to your team, please!"

Richie's eyes burn as he hears the snickers, but before he can shuffle across the gymnasium floor, Stan has beat him to it, taking long purposeful strides, head held tall. He goes and stands next to the group of girls, who giggle and whisper.

"Mr. Uris, what exactly do you think you're doing?"

Stan stares the teacher down. "Who? I'm Miss Tozier." He crosses his arms across his chest. 

"I won't ask again."

Eddie takes a deep breath, brushes his hand against Richie's, and crosses the room to stand next to Stan. "Sorry, I'm on my team now!"

The Derry Elementary gym teacher is getting visibly angry now, his jaw clenched, and the class starting to laugh harder, crueler.

"Everyone go to your proper teams, now!"

It's Bill's turn to join them. "M-m-me? Yes sir." Richie is smiling quietly to himself, looking at his friends, standing so bravely.

"That's it, you four, on the bench. And you'll be getting a call home to your parents.

Richie plops down on the sidelines, watching the rest of the class play, but he doesn't feel like he's missing out at all. He's sitting with his best friends, and he wouldn't change it for the world.

"Dodgeball is dangerous anyways, even if they call my mom she won't be mad, she told the principal I wasn't supposed to do gym at all."

Richie laughs, "Your mom doesn't let you do anything Eddie. Gym class is stupid, that's a dumb way to pick teams." If Stan sees him wipe a tear from his eye, he doesn't say anything, just smiles and pats his shoulder.

*

Richie comes into class that morning to see the message scrawled across his desk in angry red letters, marker staining the wood like blood. He doesn’t know what the word means, but he knows the intention. His eyes sting as he shuffles his papers across it, trying to cover the word, to cover the hurt. One of the girls in the front row turns around and smirks at him, but he won’t let her see his pain.

He asks the rest of them at recess. Stan’s face darkens when Richie says the word, when his voice shakes. 

“Isn’t that like a big wall? Like a dam?” Bill asks.

Stan’s hands, usually gentle and kind, ball into fists at his sides. “It’s not a nice word.”

“My mother says that’s what the lady who works at the library is,” Eddie says. “I think it’s a word for girls with short hair?”

“No,” Stan spits out. “It’s not.”

Eddie doesn’t walk home with them after school, says he needs to stay to ask the teacher something, but he’ll see them tomorrow. The three of them head home, and when Richie’s mom sees his eyes rimmed red, she lets him have a glass of chocolate milk with his dinner and lets him stay up a little later than usual–she must have forgotten the time–before tucking him in and saying goodnight.

The next day his desk is clear and clean, scrubbed of any bright, angry, red marks. A note sits inside, neatly folded: ”RICHIE IS THE BEST.” He looks up to see Eddie smiling at him.

He smiles back.

*

Maggie Tozier has had enough. This is the third doctor she’s taken her son to, and the third time he’s left in tears. Her heart aches for him; being told again and again that there’s something wrong with him for trying to get help with something he knows is right.

She calls an old friend from high school, who works as a nurse in Bangor, and tells her about Richie and how much she wants to help him, and how she wishes she could protect him from the approach of puberty. She can’t bear to think of the way his face had crumpled when he came to her complaining of pain across his chest, a slight tenderness that she knew could only mean things were starting. Thankfully, her friend has an idea of something that may help

There’s a doctor there in Bangor that has seen other patients in a similar predicament to Richie’s, and Maggie gets a referral, and an appointment, and packs Richie into the car the next Friday, picking him up early from school. Bill gives him a thumbs up as he heads out the classroom door. She picks them both up Mcdonald’s for lunch, and they eat in the parking lot of the doctor’s office before heading upstairs to the waiting room.

Richie’s knee is bouncing, shaking the little chair to the point that his mother has to put a hand on it to get him to stop. He leans in, resting his head on her shoulder, and fiddles with his fingers in the way she knows he does when he’s nervous; he’s expecting another rejection. She holds his hand tightly as a nurse calls them and shows them to the office of Dr. Elena Castelán.

“Ah, Mrs. Tozier! And you must be Richie, am I correct?” Richie beams at the use of his name, and his grip of Maggie’s hand loosens ever so slightly as she explains why they’re here at Dr. Castelán’s clinic.

She smiles warmly, “I’m glad you were able to find us here! First of all, I want you to know you are not alone, I have several patients I’ve helped with their gender identity from all over the state. And I’m pleased to hear that your parents are supportive of you!” Maggie has to blink to stop her eyes from brimming with tears.

“So, we do have to do some tests first, some bloodwork and some evaluations, but I actually think you’re a very good candidate for a new treatment we have available! There’s a drug that became available recently called Lupron, and basically what it does is it stops your body from creating hormones and temporarily stops puberty. Does that sound like something you'd like to try?”

Richie grins and almost jumps out of his chair. “Yeah!” he sees his mother looking at him and settles back down. “I mean, yes please!”

“And that sounds good to you, Mrs. Tozier?”

Maggie smiles and nods. 

“Whatever we need to do to make him feel comfortable.”

Dr. Castelán seems pleased with this response.

“So first we need to get started on paperwork, which I’ll print out for you in a minute, but I did want to mention that it’ll need to be administered as a weekly shot, and I’m sure you don’t want to have to be constantly driving up here that often. Is this something you feel you can do at home?”

“My husband’s a dentist, so he has experience with giving injections.”

“This will be a little different, but if you’d like we can show you what to do with the first shot, and then give you the syringes and prescriptions to take home. If you plan on moving on to testosterone in a couple years, you’ll have practice doing that at home as well.”

The next afternoon, after Saturday morning cartoons and the special sugary cereal Went allows on weekends (“I’m a dentist, Mags, not a sadist”), Richie runs outside to the sound of Bill’s bike horn, his friends waiting for him at the end of the driveway.

“Bye Mom, bye Dad, I’ll be home for dinner!”

Wentworth Tozier put his arms around his wife and pressed a kiss to her temple.

“You know what, Mags? I think our boy’s gonna be ok."

*

Richie had seen Beverly Marsh many times before they had gotten to know her, had heard the stories and the rumours, the hushed words spoken hurriedly by both kids and adults alike.

Beverly was everything Richie wanted to be, but also everything he hated being told he was; strong, sure of herself, and pretty. Not pretty in the way Richie had always had to wear like a mask, like an ill-fitting uniform packed away in the back of the closet, only to be put on for old relatives who came to pinch cheeks and say words that stung like vinegar; Bev was her own brand of pretty, in the sense that she didn't care about fitting the feminine ideals that Richie had shoved away from for as long as he could remember. Sometimes he wanted to hate her for it; he certainly envied her.

After that summer they became nearly as close as he and Eddie were, but…different. There was an unspoken understanding between them, a knowing; a kindred feeling in their souls that the others were not privy to. Bev was over at the Tozier residence just as often as the others, if not more. It was different from when they first met her, buying packs of tampons just to keep up appearances, but at the quarry there had been nothing to hide; just a beautiful girl they all wanted so desperately to be friends with.

Maggie has also taken a shine to her, picking up soft blouses and hair clips every now and again from Freese's laying them on the arm of the couch when she knows Bev is coming over. "A girl should be able to have pretty things," she says.

Richie's closet is a mess of clashing patterns and bright colours, a riot of bad fashion as Beverly watches him reach into the very back and pull out what is probably the ugliest dress she has ever seen. It's a dark green plaid with neon pink flowers on it, ruffles down the front of the chest.

"Where did you even get that? It's horrible!"

Richie grins, holding it up to himself and doing a little spin. "My Nana caught on to my taste in clothes pretty fast, but still insists on buying dresses," he grimaces, and tosses it on the bed. "I mean, at least she's trying a little bit? But what the fuck? Someone actually sells this shit?"

Beverly laughs, watching Richie tug on the ruffles. 

"Yeah, I'm not wearing that. Nice thought though. Anything else?"

Richie sticks his arm even further into the closet.

"Haha! Jackpot!" He pulls out an ivory dress overlaid with lace, scalloping along the hem and neckline, with long fitted sleeves. "My dad's mom isn't trying at all. She says I need," he does a voice: an old woman, thin and reedy but commanding, "a proper church dress! For a proper young lady!"

"Aren't you Jewish?"

"Only mom's side, so Gran keeps trying to steal me away into Christianity 

He holds the dress out to Beverly, who takes it and holds it up to herself, feeling the soft lace under her fingers.

"I think this could work."

The next time Richie sees the dress is at the school dance, dyed pink and with the sleeves cut off. Bev's hair is clipped back on one side with a hairpin he remembers his mom buying, covered in fake pearls. She looks pretty, in the way Richie sometimes wishes he could have been. She's beautiful.

A familiar song starts up in the school gym, and he bows deeply and extends his hand.

"May I have this dance, Miss Ringwald?"

"Why, of course, Mr. Tozier!"

They laugh as they dance, singing along, and Richie swears he could fall in love with her, if things went that way.

"Isn't she pretty, isn't she pretty in pink?"


End file.
